The EU 3-Euro Duty on Non-EU Parcels: What Really Changes for Consumers and Businesses

The End of a Long-Standing Exemption

For years, buying a low-cost item from a Chinese platform and having it delivered to your door with no extra charges was perfectly ordinary. Behind that convenience lay a specific rule: the customs exemption for shipments worth less than 150 euros, originally designed to spare customs authorities the administrative burden of inspecting millions of small parcels. As of 1 July 2026, that rule is gone. A flat European Union duty of 3 euros on every customs line item of non-EU parcels under 150 euros has come into force, introduced by EU Regulation 2026/382. The measure is the outcome of a broad customs reform given final approval by the Council of the European Union, which described it as an urgent response to unfair competition, consumer safety risks and the fraud tied to the wave of small shipments.

The scale of the phenomenon explains why Brussels stepped in. In 2025, roughly 5.9 billion items entered the European Union in low-value parcels from third countries, over 90% of them from China: that means around 16 million shipments cleared through customs every single day. That volume, which stood at 4.6 billion just a year earlier, has grown at a staggering pace; according to the European Commission it has doubled year on year since 2022. It is a wave with clear faces and names, those of the big Asian e-commerce platforms such as Shein, Temu and AliExpress, which have won over millions of European consumers with rock-bottom prices, free shipping and, precisely, the absence of duties.

This article aims to bring clarity to a measure that has often been reported in confusing ways and with conflicting figures. We will look at how the duty actually works, why the numbers quoted in Italy have ranged from 3 to 5 euros, and above all what the pros and cons are for the two parties involved: those who buy and those who sell.

How the Duty Works, Without the Misunderstandings

The first point to clear up is that the duty does not apply per parcel, but per product category declared at customs. The distinction may sound technical, but it makes an enormous difference to the final price. If you order five identical T-shirts, the duty is 3 euros just once, because they all fall under the same customs line. But if the same parcel contains a T-shirt, a pair of sunglasses and an umbrella, the duties become three, one per category, for a total of 9 euros. It is a mechanism that particularly penalises "mixed" purchases, the kind typical of shoppers who fill a cart with an assortment of small, different items. It should be added that artificially bundling items of a different nature together to pay less is expressly prohibited by the regulation, so that loophole is not viable.

Formally, the duty is owed by the declarant, that is, the platform, carrier or freight forwarder that files the customs declaration, not by the consumer. The European Commission has also clarified that the cost should fall on the seller. In practice, however, almost no one expects the platforms to absorb the entire burden: the more realistic prediction is that the cost will be passed on to the final price or to shipping charges. In other words, the seller formally pays, but the bill lands on the buyer.

Another important element is the temporary nature of the measure. The 3-euro duty will remain in force until 1 July 2028, when the European Customs Data Hub comes into operation, a digital platform that will eliminate the 150-euro threshold entirely and calculate ordinary duties based on the value, origin and classification of each individual item, right from the very first cent. The current flat rate, in short, is a bridge towards a more structured system, not an end point.

The Italian Puzzle: 3, 5 or How Much?

Anyone who followed the story in the press ran into different figures, and it is worth untangling the confusion, because it is all real and stems from the overlap of several measures. On top of the 3-euro European duty, Italy had provided in its budget law for a national contribution of 2 euros on non-EU parcels under 150 euros. Had the two levies been combined, the fixed cost per order would have risen to 5 euros, even for a product costing one or two euros.

To avoid this "3+2" effect, the government intervened: with a decree approved on 22 June 2026 the Italian 2-euro contribution was suspended until 1 October 2026. From July, therefore, Italian consumers pay only the European duty. The matter is not settled, however, because from November 2026 a European handling fee is also expected, a customs management charge distinct from the duty, of an amount not yet set but estimated at between 2 and 3 euros. The stated goal of the Italian suspension is precisely to align the various levies and prevent Italian consumers from being penalised more than other Europeans.

This national detail has already produced an interesting and little-discussed side effect. According to freight forwarders, in the early months of 2025 the goods cleared through Italian hubs are said to have dropped dramatically, because international carriers prefer to land parcels in countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands or Hungary, where there are no additional national levies, and then move them into Italy by road. Not by chance, according to simulations by the hauliers' association Confetra, an additional national contribution risked shifting up to half of air cargo traffic towards foreign hubs such as Liège, Frankfurt and Schiphol, to the detriment of Malpensa and Fiumicino: one of the reasons that prompted the government to postpone the measure. It is a sign that uncoordinated measures between member states can displace logistics flows rather than stop them, a theme worth keeping an eye on.

What Changes for Consumers

From the buyer's point of view, the balance is mixed. The downside is obvious: prices go up and the economic advantage of non-EU purchases shrinks. A 20-euro order can easily top 30 once the various charges are added, and for very low-value purchases the fixed duty can even exceed the cost of the product itself. Someone who used to buy three different items at a few euros each now faces a surcharge that wipes out any convenience. Added to this are potentially longer delivery times, owing to more thorough customs checks.

But there are also aspects in the consumer's favour, often overlooked in the coverage. The first is transparency: the new rules require all charges to be paid in advance, at checkout, eliminating the unwelcome surprises at the moment of delivery, when buyers sometimes had to pay unexpected sums to collect their parcel. The second, more substantial, concerns product safety. One of the stated reasons for the measure is to counter products that do not meet European health and environmental standards, a problem that is anything but theoretical when it comes to very low-cost items imported en masse without controls. Looking ahead, fewer non-compliant products means greater protection for buyers.

What Changes for Businesses

It is on the business front that the measure reveals its underlying logic, openly declared by Brussels: to create fairer competitive conditions. The President of the European Commission has pointed out that around 30 million people work in the retail sector, Europe's largest private employer, and that the wave of low-value online imports had put the continent's retailers at a structural disadvantage. A European shop, which complies with rules on safety, the environment, labour and taxation, was competing against products that entered without duties and often without the same controls. The duty reduces this asymmetry.

For European and Italian businesses, then, the potential benefit is concrete: the price gap that made non-EU platforms almost unbeatable narrows, restoring competitiveness to those who produce and sell locally. It is not the solution to all the problems of local commerce, but it is a rebalancing that shifts the playing field a little. In fairness, though, the advantage is not automatic: 3 euros of duty do not on their own bridge price gaps that are sometimes enormous, and European retailers will still have to compete on quality, service, timing and reliability, not merely expect their rival to become more expensive.

On the opposite side are the large platforms affected, which now face a strategic choice. Either absorb the compliance costs, which run into billions, or pass them on to customers, risking the loss of the most price-sensitive ones. Several analysts predict that to survive these operators will have to restructure their model, abandoning direct air shipping from China and investing in logistics warehouses inside the European Union, a shift that by some estimates could erode a significant share of their margins. Paradoxically, then, the measure could push these giants to put down deeper roots in Europe, with effects on employment and logistics that are still entirely to be assessed.

Not Just Price: The Environmental and Fiscal Reasons

Reducing the whole story to a question of prices would, however, be simplistic, because behind the measure lie at least two other motives that deserve consideration in a balanced analysis. The first is environmental. The model of the single parcel shipped by air from China, often containing very cheap, very short-lived fast-fashion products, has a significant environmental impact, both from transport emissions and from the sheer quantity of disposable goods it fuels. Making this model less attractive has, among its stated effects, that of discouraging impulse purchases of quickly discarded products.

The second motive is fiscal and to do with control. The explosion of mini-parcels had created not only a competition problem but also a huge blind spot for customs, with millions of daily shipments impossible to inspect one by one and fertile ground for undervaluation and small-scale fraud. The new system, by requiring declaration and payment in advance, restores to the authorities a visibility they had lost and recovers revenue that previously almost entirely slipped through the net. These are aspects that rarely make the headlines, which focus on "how much more it costs me", but which explain why the measure enjoys broad, cross-party political support at the European level.

Naturally, there is also a critical reading. Consumer associations have observed that a fixed, flat duty is by its nature regressive: in percentage terms it weighs far more heavily on a purchase of a few euros than on one of a hundred, thus hitting hardest those seeking the cheapest products. It is a legitimate criticism, one that the future 2028 system, based on the real value of the goods, should in theory correct.

One Piece of a Bigger Game

Looking beyond the single levy, this measure should be read as the first act in a broader transformation of cross-border digital commerce. The European Union is dismantling, piece by piece, the model that allowed non-EU marketplaces to sell at prices barely sustainable for a European business. The 3-euro duty, November's handling fee, the national contribution postponed to October and finally the new customs hub of 2028 are stages of one and the same journey, aimed at taxing every item from the very first cent and bringing online commerce back within a uniform framework of rules.

For consumers, the practical takeaway is to pay closer attention to the terms of an order before confirming it, because the price displayed is no longer necessarily the final one. For businesses, especially SMEs that sell online, it is a chance to rethink their positioning in a market that is changing its ground rules: when the price advantage of global competitors shrinks, factors such as the shopping experience, service quality, closeness to the customer and trust in the brand come to matter more again.

At A126 we closely follow the evolution of the digital economy and online commerce, because every regulatory change brings with it risks to understand and opportunities to seize. If you run a business that sells online and want to understand how to navigate a shifting landscape, get in touch: let's think together about how to strengthen your digital presence in a market that is fairer but also more competitive.

A126 Corporate Advisors — Understanding the digital world, beyond the headlines.